New Disease

An AIDS-related disease that causes victims to become emaciated and die has been discovered in rural Uganda and doctors say it is apparently spread by heterosexual promiscuity, a British medical journal reported this week. The authoritative Lancet journal said in its latest issue the illness has been nicknamed by Ugandans as "slim disease" because its primary symptom is extreme weight loss and a typical case leads to death after about a year. "The first patients were seen in 1982 and new ones are being seen with increasing frequency," said the report, which did not give numbers of victims but said it was "epidemic" in some areas.

With violence in Darfur in an extended lull, a new study assessing dozens of mortality estimates for the six years of fighting there has concluded that about 300,000 people died, but that disease, rather than violence, killed at least 80 percent of them. That was not true at first, the study said. Violence, it said, was the main cause in 2004, the year after the rebellion in the Darfur region of western Sudan began, setting off a brutal repression by janjaweed militias burning down villages and government jets flying bombing runs.

The World Health Organization removed the last country -- Taiwan -- from its list of SARS-infected areas Saturday, ending an epidemic that in its three-month surge around the world infected thousands and shook economies from Asia to North America. Taiwan was given a clean bill of health by the United Nations agency because its most recent victim was isolated 20 days earlier, twice the length of the disease's 10-day incubation period. "The SARS outbreak has been contained worldwide," said WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Citrus growers are starting out the new decade in what many of them view as their final fight for survival. The threat from so-called citrus greening - also called Huanglongbing or yellow dragon disease - is so great that growers have voted to further tax themselves to pay for the international last stand against the tree killer. Coupled with money from a previous tax on each box of citrus produced, $10 million per year will be spent on almost 100 research projects conducted by scientists from Florida, California, Brazil and Spain.

The incurable and often fatal disease AIDS does not exist in the Soviet Union but medical researchers are seeking a cure should the illness spread to the Soviet Union, the workers` newspaper Trud said Sunday. It blamed sexual permissiveness in the West for the spread of the disease and said such practices were rare in the Soviet Union. The report contradicted the admission last summer by a Soviet doctor that several cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome had been detected. Trud quoted Deputy Minister of Health Pyotr Burgasov as saying, "AIDS is a dangerous disease, but it has not been registered with us. "The point of the matter is that it is a social problem inasmuch as it is connected widely with sexual permissiveness that is tolerated in certain circles in the West, but is unnatural for our society," he said.

Scientists sent to Cuba to investigate a disease that impairs vision and damages nerves say they are baffled about its cause and the reason the number of cases has risen to 34,000 from 26,000 a month ago. Although some experts in the United States had said the epidemic appeared to have been caused by a vitamin deficiency, laboratory tests have not established any environmental, genetic, nutritional, infectious or toxicological cause for the epidemic, the...

When the classroom door closed on the bustle of the Florida Atlantic University campus one day last week, a solemn quiet settled over three dozen students who had come to learn of death, sex, politics, religion and morality. The subject of their course: AIDS in America. "AIDS is not only a health crisis," said Fred Fejes, an associate professor of communications who organized the course -- apparently the first of its kind in the nation -- which started at the FAU campus in Boca Raton last week.

The sobbing came from the next booth. Glancing over, I saw an attractive couple, tears streaming down their cheeks and dripping on their veggie lunch plates. And I spotted the source of their grief. On the table was the latest copy of Newsweek, with a cover story revealing the shocking news that countless baby boomers have reached or are now approaching middle age. This issue of the magazine has traumatized many of those born in the 15 years after World War II. "It`s so cruel and unfair," the woman gasped.

Citrus growers are starting out the new decade in what many of them view as their final fight for survival. The threat from so-called citrus greening - also called Huanglongbing or yellow dragon disease - is so great that growers have voted to further tax themselves to pay for the international last stand against the tree killer. Coupled with money from a previous tax on each box of citrus produced, $10 million per year will be spent on almost 100 research projects conducted by scientists from Florida, California, Brazil and Spain.

With violence in Darfur in an extended lull, a new study assessing dozens of mortality estimates for the six years of fighting there has concluded that about 300,000 people died, but that disease, rather than violence, killed at least 80 percent of them. That was not true at first, the study said. Violence, it said, was the main cause in 2004, the year after the rebellion in the Darfur region of western Sudan began, setting off a brutal repression by janjaweed militias burning down villages and government jets flying bombing runs.

The World Health Organization removed the last country -- Taiwan -- from its list of SARS-infected areas Saturday, ending an epidemic that in its three-month surge around the world infected thousands and shook economies from Asia to North America. Taiwan was given a clean bill of health by the United Nations agency because its most recent victim was isolated 20 days earlier, twice the length of the disease's 10-day incubation period. "The SARS outbreak has been contained worldwide," said WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland.

When Bernie Baker visited his cardiologist about a year ago, the doctor noticed a tremor in his right hand. That tremor, the Boca Raton resident later learned, was Parkinson's disease. "When I was diagnosed, I wasn't scared at all," said Baker, 80, who is a decorated World War II veteran. "I was told, to be life threatening, the disease takes awhile." He said, "I eat well, I sleep well and I do as much as possible." Today, with the aid of medication, Baker leads a quality life and volunteers his time to raise money for the treatment of and search for a cure for the disease.

Scientists sent to Cuba to investigate a disease that impairs vision and damages nerves say they are baffled about its cause and the reason the number of cases has risen to 34,000 from 26,000 a month ago. Although some experts in the United States had said the epidemic appeared to have been caused by a vitamin deficiency, laboratory tests have not established any environmental, genetic, nutritional, infectious or toxicological cause for the epidemic, the...

As if cholesterol, smoking, high blood pressure and fat weren`t enough to worry about, scientists are investigating another possible accomplice in heart disease: viruses. What`s worse, the viruses being studied are so common it`s hard to find an adult who isn`t infected. One of the main microbes under suspicion is the herpes simplex virus that causes cold sores. The association between viruses and heart disease isn`t new, but scientists are getting closer to figuring how the viruses might fit into the process.

Ivax Corp. said on Wednesday it has secured a license for a new series of drugs that may be superior to current treatments for several types of heart disease. The Miami-based pharmaceuticals company said the drugs have been tested only in animals. Developed by Ho-Leung Fung, a scientist at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the compounds relieve the symptoms of angina pectoris, or chest pain, caused by poor blood flow to the heart. The drugs also could treat congestive heart failure.

The sobbing came from the next booth. Glancing over, I saw an attractive couple, tears streaming down their cheeks and dripping on their veggie lunch plates. And I spotted the source of their grief. On the table was the latest copy of Newsweek, with a cover story revealing the shocking news that countless baby boomers have reached or are now approaching middle age. This issue of the magazine has traumatized many of those born in the 15 years after World War II. "It`s so cruel and unfair," the woman gasped.

Ivax Corp. said on Wednesday it has secured a license for a new series of drugs that may be superior to current treatments for several types of heart disease. The Miami-based pharmaceuticals company said the drugs have been tested only in animals. Developed by Ho-Leung Fung, a scientist at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the compounds relieve the symptoms of angina pectoris, or chest pain, caused by poor blood flow to the heart. The drugs also could treat congestive heart failure.

As if cholesterol, smoking, high blood pressure and fat weren`t enough to worry about, scientists are investigating another possible accomplice in heart disease: viruses. What`s worse, the viruses being studied are so common it`s hard to find an adult who isn`t infected. One of the main microbes under suspicion is the herpes simplex virus that causes cold sores. The association between viruses and heart disease isn`t new, but scientists are getting closer to figuring how the viruses might fit into the process.

When the classroom door closed on the bustle of the Florida Atlantic University campus one day last week, a solemn quiet settled over three dozen students who had come to learn of death, sex, politics, religion and morality. The subject of their course: AIDS in America. "AIDS is not only a health crisis," said Fred Fejes, an associate professor of communications who organized the course -- apparently the first of its kind in the nation -- which started at the FAU campus in Boca Raton last week.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. -- When kidney dialysis patients taking part in the clinical trials of Amgen`s erythropoeitin talk about the drug`s impact on their lives, they tend to use words like "wonderful" and "dramatic," with all the restraint of a carnival barker hawking snake oil. But erythropoeitin, or EPO, is no hoax. Kidney specialists say the genetically-engineered product successfully alleviates the chronic anemia that saps late-stage kidney disease sufferers of their energy. Amgen`s EPO has been approved for sale in Switzerland and France and could receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval by the end of this year.